My weep holes no longer wept!

Around 2:30 this morning one of those infamous Texas rain storms blew into town. Now I dearly love the softly muted sound of rain on a Casita roof. It gently reminds me of boyhood visits to my grandparents and the not so muted sound of rain on the tin roof of their farmhouse.

As I lay enjoying the sound of the rain, the thought struck that perhaps this would be a good time to check for leaks around the various rivets and openings in the Casita's shell. On went the lights, and immediately I saw a fairly constant drip of rainwater coming through the curbside window at the foot of my oh-so-soft and comfy bed.

Galvanized into action, I maneuvered my already damp mattress and bedding away from the drip (in my mind it had fully reached the proportions of a Texas Niagara), and examined the spot.

The first thing I noticed was that the water was not coming in around the frame of the window, it was coming through the screen! Water was being trapped on the inside of the sliding part of the window until it built up enough to come through the screening. I grabbed a roll of aluminum tape that I keep handy and used it to temporarily seal the leak.

Confident that my aluminum tape cofferdam would hold, I checked the rest of the trailer. Finding no further problems, I returned to my rearranged bedding and fell into dreams of Sugar Plum Fairies who came in the night to magically reseal and replace my Casita's window.

Of course the next morning, I found that the fairies had exhibited a tremendous amount of good sense and stayed snug an dry in their own little faerie sized Casitas rather than fool around with fixing my Casita. Thus I set about taking care of my own problem.

After careful research and analysis, I determined that the problem was not with the seal around my 1989 Casita. That brought a huge sigh of relief since I had no confidence that I could remove and replace the window with any hope that I would not create even larger leaks for the next Texas downpour.

What I noticed was that leaf mold from the predominant elm trees in my neighborhood had clogged the weep holes at the bottom of the window. The weep holes are there to allow water that falls against the window to drain to the outside of the trailer. My inattention to detail had allowed the debris to accumulate to the point that the weep holes no longer wept. The water built up until if found it's way through the interior screen and onto my bedding.

The fix was simple. A bent paper clip, an old toothbrush, and a flat blade screwdriver to scrape the leaf mold away. No screws to undo, no rivets to replace, and, best of all, no need to remove and replace the window.

From now on you can bet that I will pay more attention to the Casita little things like keeping my weep holes weepable!